–Welcome to the plutocratic theocracy

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor,
which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive,
and the motive is the gap.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

On July 3, I wrote a comment to my own post, It’s official. America is a right-wing, male, Christian country, and “freedom” means captivity. The comment was:

The monster has begun to grow. America now is a plutocratic theocracy:

The Supreme Court has already expanded Hobby Lobby decision

The court either ordered appeals courts to reconsider their rejection of the employers’ claims in light of the Hobby Lobby decision, or let stand lower courts’ endorsement of those claims.

Translation: All contraceptive services — not just the four mentioned in the Hobby Lobby case — now may be rejected by “sincere” religious objections.

The Becket Fund lists 49 pending federal cases in which for-profit companies have brought purportedly religious objections to the ACA.

An additional 51 cases involve nonprofit organizations. The floodgates aren’t about to open–they’re already open.

An Indiana construction company refuses to pay for or support not only “contraceptives, sterilization, abortion, (or) abortion-inducing drugs,” but “related education and counseling.”

In other words, if a woman asks her doctor for advice on reproductive options, the consultation may not be covered.

Expect every nut with a political cause to come out of the woodwork, and claim a “sincere religious objection.”

Eden Foods’ Catholic owner said, “I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story.”

This hint that Potter had merely swaddled an anti-government rant within a “religious” blanket illustrates the main problem with Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Hobby Lobby: it takes claims of religious scruples for granted.

My opinion: The Citizens United and Hobby Lobby cases will define the Roberts court and its extreme right-wing justices, as among the worst of the past century. The former establishes a plutocracy; the latter establishes a theocracy.

Despite your other leanings, the future makeup of the Court may be the one reason to vote Democratic in the coming elections.

I’ve now come across an article so good, I don’t want to cheat you with an excerpted version: The Senate will soon vote on an amendment to overturn Citizens United. History is calling!

I strongly suggest you click the link and read the article.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–The hardening of the American head

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor,
which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive,
and the motive is the gap.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

This was going to be titled, “The hardening of then American heart,” but after reading it, you may understand the change.

The human species has two attributes that have separated us from all other species. The first is our problem solving ability, which begins at our natural use of metaphors and similes.

What other species can see faces in clouds and birds in a Rorschach test? If I say Secretary of State John Kerry has a “horse face,” you understand the analogy.

We can group unlike things and give the attributes of one thing to another. For humans, this is basic. Children do it. Watch a small child at play, and see how easily he or she gives characteristics to inanimate objects. It requires almost no thinking effort at all.

The second attribute is social. We live in groups and rely on groups. We have immediate families and extended families. We have neighborhoods, towns, cities, nations. Even our whole species can be a group.

As a species, we intentionally wiped out another species, the smallpox virus, because we considered it a threat to our group, the human species. Our species beat that species in the war of evolution.

Being part of a group also requires no thinking effort for humans. It comes naturally to root for the home team and to hate the other guys.

Wrongly assemble those two, normally beneficial, non-thinking attributes together — the natural ability at analogy and group life — and you can create the Frankenstein monster: Bigotry.

The basic statement, “All [group] are [attribute]” is fundamental to bigotry. All Jews are cheap. All Mexicans are lazy. All Germans are warlike. All Italians are criminals. All blacks are gangsters. All Poles are stupid. (Or is it, all Jews are lazy; all Mexicans are criminals; all Poles are warlike? I never can get the bigotries straight).

Because bigotry requires no thought, it is practiced most by those who think the least. How very simple it is to dismiss an entire group as worthless in some way, without having to undergo the pain and effort of actual contemplation.

One needn’t even work up the mental energy to find an appropriate demeaning adjective to describe the group. Those adjectives already are supplied by other members of the group. All you need do is parrot them.

This all came to mind as I read just the latest in a long line of shameful articles, this one titled, Immigration rallies clash in California: ‘Go back to Europe!’, in the Washington Times.

MURRIETA, Calif. — Rumors had swirled among anti-immigration activists near a U.S. Border Patrol station in Southern California that the agency would try again to bus in some immigrants.

The crowd of 200 outside the station in Murrieta waved signs and sometimes shouted at each other. One banner read: “Proud LEGAL American. It doesn’t work any other way.” Another countered: “Against illegal immigration? Great! Go back to Europe!”

Earlier this week, the city became the latest flashpoint in the intensifying immigration debate when a crowd of protesters waving American flags blocked buses carrying women and children who were flown from overwhelmed Texas facilities.

“This is a way of making our voices heard,” said Steve Prime, a resident of nearby Lake Elsinore. “The government’s main job is to secure our borders and protect us — and they’re doing neither.”

Immigration supporters said the immigrants need to be treated as humans and that migrating to survive is not a crime.

“We’re celebrating the 4th of July and what a melting pot America is,” said Raquel Alvarado, a high school history teacher and Murrieta resident who chalked up the fear of migrants in the city of roughly 106,000 to discrimination. “They don’t want to have their kids share the same classroom,” she said.

A July 3 statement by City Manager Rick Dudley, suggesting that protesters had come from elsewhere in Southern California, expressed regret that the busloads of women and children had been forced to turn around.

What is this mindless hatred of brown women and children? What is this total lack of compassion and empathy for humans who merely want the same things we all want: To survive in a better world, for themselves and for their children. How can we not sympathize with that?

In recent months, thousands of children and families have fled violence, murders and extortion from criminal gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Since October, more than 52,000 unaccompanied children have been detained.

Think of it: More than 52,000 children alone and frightened. And what do we do? Stop their buses. Scream at them. Terrorize them. That is America’s response.

Yes, there are “reasons.”

Some local leaders said the outrage among some area residents was justified, given the already stressed social services infrastructure and the stagnant regional economy.

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone said they weren’t concerned about the people on the buses. “It’s the thousands more that will follow that will strain our resources and take away the resources we need to care for our own citizens,” he said.

Hasn’t that always been the case? Millions of immigrants came through Ellis Island. It has been estimated that close to 40 percent of all current U.S. citizens can trace at least one of their ancestors to Ellis Island.

New York did not reject them. Some stayed in New York. Most disbursed and built America. We are a much better land for their coming.

And then there is the “jobs” excuse. All immigrants take jobs. All immigrants create jobs. This is true, regardless of whether the law says they are “legal” or not.

Ultimately, there are nothing but excuses, nothing but rationalizations for the true reason: Bigotry.

In the border town of El Centro, California, a flight arrived Wednesday without protest.

In Nogales, Arizona, the mayor has said he welcomes the hundreds of children who are being dropped off daily at a large Border Patrol warehouse. Residents have donated clothing and other items for them.

(But) at a town hall meeting this week, residents in Artesia (NM) spoke out against a detention center that recently started housing immigrants. They said they were afraid the immigrants would take jobs and resources from U.S. citizens.

They were afraid. That summarizes it all: Fear and loathing. Because all brown-skinned people are — what? Lazy? Criminal? Uncivilized? What are all these women and children?

Bigotry cloaks itself in rationalizations, but at its core, bigotry, like fear itself, is thoughtless. Literally thoughtless, as in “no thinking.”

Like a herd of stampeding cattle, bigots can be moved and turned by a word here, a sound there. There is no thinking in those cattle. They just charge headlong, often running over their own calves, mindless, senseless, thoughtless. That is the bigot.

It requires a much higher level of human intelligence to offer compassion and empathy, especially to those who are not part of your group. In short, bigotry is for the stupid.

As I said at the start, this post was going to be titled, “The hardening of the American heart.” I feel the current title is more accurate.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–The seeming irony of self interest.

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor,
which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive,
and the motive is the gap.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

Has it ever occurred to you, that many of the people who preach most loudly about sin, later are discovered to have committed that very sin? What was their motive?

Consider the hundreds (thousands?) of priests who have raped young boys. What were these priests saying during their sermons? Is this irony, or self interest?

Consider the politicians who have campaigned mightily against the “sin” of being gay, and who later were found to be gay. Why did they feel the need to campaign against gays? Is this irony, or self interest?

Hitler considered the “master race” to be tall and blond, while he himself was of modest height and dark haired. Why essentially, did he preach against himself? Was this irony, or self interest?

“Irony” (or self interest) is everywhere in politics.

Hatred of Jews is common among Christians. Yet Christ is said to have lived and died a Jew, as did all his disciples. Why have so many Christians persecuted Jews, whose religion was the religion of their Lord? Is this irony, or self interest?

The most religious, bible thumping, right wing followers of Christ also seem to be the harshest anti-gay, anti-brown, anti-black, anti-poor, anti-contraceptive, hate-filled people — exactly the opposite of the compassion for all people, that Christ taught. Is this irony, or self interest?

Ghandi said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” What did he mean?

My beliefs:
–Those priests became priests in order to conceal heir dark desires. It was self interest.
–The same was true of the anti-gay politicians. Hiding their “gayness” was self interest.
–Hitler is more complicated:

Undoubtedly Hitler grew up with a very strong Oedipus Complex.

Thwarted in normal emotional relationship with his parents, since he hated his father, his energy took extraordinary outlets. He tried at first to retreat into dreams, to compensate for the unhappiness of his actual life by creating an imaginary world of happiness and success.

His will to be utterly different from his father made him wish to be an artist. He was overcome by his yearnings to fulfill the great historical mission that life, in the person of his mother, promised him.

Ever since, all through his career, he has been subconsciously proving to his dead father his right to independence, success, and power.

Every leader needs an enemy to blame and followers to flatter.

Hitler needed to assure the German people they were not at fault for Germany’s WWI defeat (it was the Jews), and they actually were superior (blond Aryan)to other people. Naturally, the Germans were ready to believe him.

All these thoughts have been swirling, as I read about the latest, right-wing billionaires who wish to remake America into an orthodox Christian nation: no, not the Kochs, the Wilks brothers.

They’ve embraced both the anti-government politics of the Koch brothers and the religious right’s anti-gay, anti-choice cultural warfare.

The Wilks brothers belong to Pastors and Pews, an organization connected to Christian-nation extremist David Lane, who wants to make the Bible a primary public school textbook.

Dan Wilks said, (we need to) “bring the Bible back into the school, and start teaching our kids at a younger age.” Adds brother Farris: “They’re being taught the other ideas, the gay agenda, every day out in the world so we have to stand up and explain to them that that’s not real, that’s not proper, it’s not right.”

The brothers’ worldview seems to draw heavily on the teachings of a church founded by their father, which combines Biblical literalism with a heavy emphasis on the Old Testament.

According to church doctrine, abortion is “murder,” including when it ends pregnancies resulting from rape and incest.

And homosexuality is “a serious crime — a very grievous sin.”

Farris is a pastor of the church. In his sermons, he decries “socialism” and argues that the Bible was grounded in the free market.

He urges congregants not to vote for candidates who promise “free this, free that,” saying “Yahweh never intended for us as a people to be afraid and reliant on government.”

He has suggested that the melting of the icecaps might be punishment for sin.

For the Kochs and the Wilks, there is no irony. They use religion for their self interest.

Above all, rich men want control. Preaching a religion provides that control, specifically if the religion happens to be the one religion they happen to be born to. As a preacher, you alone have the right to judge others, to speak with the authority of God about who is good and who is evil.

Naturally, you are good.

Because followers need to visualize “evil,” there need to be scapegoats. Jews, immigrants, gays and the poor will do nicely.

Jews are traditional; 2,000 years of bigotry have established their value as scapegoats.

Despite our being a nation of immigrants, our domestic dictators always have used the false “they-are-taking-our-jobs” excuse to despise them. Browns, blacks and gays are “different” (from white straights), and women should “know their place (which is to take orders from men).

But there is more to it than that. Rich men tend toward anti-government, because the government does three things they abhor: Taxes, spends and legislates.

The government levies taxes the rich spend much of their time trying to minimize. And government spending benefits the poor and middle-income groups more than the rich, thus closing the GAP between the rich and the rest.

To the rich, the GAP is vital. If there were no GAP, no one would be rich, and the larger the GAP, the richer they are.

Consider global warming which the rich deny. They deny it because the government says to reduce pollution from their factories. The rich do not like being told.

To the rich, any government program is “socialism” or “communism,” if the program aids the poor. (A government program of privatization, which aids the rich, is fine.)

Yes, worst of all, from the standpoint of the rich, the government creates laws, and by their very nature, laws keep people from doing whatever they feel like doing — the opposite of what the rich want.

The rich do not want people, especially people elected by browns, blacks, Jews and gays, telling them what they can and cannot do. In their world, they do the telling and everyone else does the bowing, scraping and says, “Yes, sir. You’re right, sir.”

Consider global warming which the rich deny. They deny it because the government says to reduce pollution from their factories.

So the rich spread the BIG LIE that the deficit is too high, and that the poor and the immigrants are “takers,” while they, the rich, are the “makers.” And this all comes from the word of God.

Essentially, this is what they preach to the masses: “You are good, god-fearing people. It’s not your fault that the system works against you. It’s the fault of the government. It’s the fault of immigrants who take your jobs. It’s the fault of the “food stamp mamas,” who cheat the system. It’s the fault of loose women.”

Bigotry has worked before in America. Consider the “yellow peril.”

In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act made the Chinese the first nationality specifically banned from immigrating to this country. Labor leader Samuel Gompers argued, “The superior whites had to exclude the inferior Asiatics, by law, or, if necessary, by force of arms.”

From 1854 to 1874, a California law prevented Chinese from testifying in court against white men. The 1879 California constitution denied suffrage to all “natives of China, idiots, and insane persons.”

As economist Thomas Sowell points out in “Ethnic America”: “It was made a misdemeanor to carry baskets suspended on a pole across the shoulder-the way the Chinese delivered.”

(Then there was) Executive Order 9066 by which President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered more than 110,000 of Japanese ancestry interned in 10 camps.

The incarceration was upheld by the Supreme Court and endorsed by such opinion-molders as the Los Angeles Times, which editorialized: “A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is born-so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents, grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”

In 1980, presidential candidate John Connally warned the Japanese they had “better be prepared to sit on the docks of Yokohama in your little Datsuns and your little Toyotas while you stare at your own little television sets and eat your mandarin oranges, because we’ve had all we’re going to take!”

Two years later, Walter Mondale was echoing Connally: “We’ve been running up the white flag, when we should be running up the American flag!… What do we want our kids to do? Sweep up around Japanese computers?”

Around the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, former Se. Howard Baker pointed out “two facts”: “First, we’re still at war with Japan. Second, we’re losing.”

Yes, bigotry works for the power-hungry. It worked in Germany. It has worked in America. It is working in the Mid-east. And it is working for our “religious” right wing.

There always will be foolish people who believe their bad fortune is someone else’s fault, and if they join the bullies, they won’t be beaten any more.

Then, after they give their energy, money and allegiance they find themselves oppressed by their “saviors,” because the rich never are satisfied.

And that is the true irony.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–It’s official. America is a right-wing, male, Christian country, and “freedom” means captivity.

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor,
which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive,
and the motive is the gap.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

Just when I thought the Supreme Court justices couldn’t possibly become more right-wing corporate, they outdo themselves.

You probably thought “a wall” separates our government from religion, so that all religions would be treated equally.

You were wrong.

You probably thought everyone, no matter what their religious beliefs, had to obey the law.

You were wrong.

You probably thought men and women are to be treated with equal deference, under the law.

You were wrong.

You probably thought you understood the meaning of “freedom.”

You were wrong.

It’s official. America is a right-wing, male, Christian country.

A ‘Narrow’ Decision From The Narrow-Minded

By the 5-4 margin, (Supreme Court) justices ruled Monday that “closely held” corporations (i.e., those more than half owned by five people or fewer) may refuse, out of “sincerely held” religious beliefs, to provide certain contraceptive options to female employees as part of their health-care package.

Not to worry, writes Alito, this ruling is “very specific.” Not to fret, concurs Kennedy, this is not a ruling of “breadth and sweep.”

Apparently, it’s a narrow ruling because they say it’s a narrow ruling. Apparently, we are simply to trust them on that. But even if you could take them at their word, this would be a frightening decision, the imposition of religion masquerading as freedom of religion.

The “five” in the 5-4 decision all are right-wing, male Christians. Of the four dissenters, three are not male, and three are not Christian, and none are right-wing.

Presumably, the “five” also consider themselves mind-readers, who can separate “sincerely held” religious beliefs from religious beliefs that are not “sincerely held.” (Wanna bet the latter turn out to be believers in religions other than Christianity?)

Under the court’s logic, it’s difficult to see why a corporation owned by a family of devout Jehovah’s Witnesses can’t deny (insurance for) blood transfusions to its workers. Or why one owned by conservative Muslims can’t deny employment to women. Or why one owned by evangelical Christians can’t deny service to gay men and lesbians.

[Or one owned by ultra-orthodox Jews can’t refuse to allow insurance that pays for male doctors attending women.]

This is not just hypothetical. In the last decade, we’ve seen Christian pharmacists claim faith as a reason for refusing to fill — and in some cases, confiscating — contraceptive prescriptions. We’ve seen Muslim cabbies use the same “logic” in declining to serve passengers carrying alcohol.

There is a difference between the pharmacists and the cabbies — two differences, actually. The pharmacists are Christians refusing to provide health. The cabbies are just Muslims, dealing with a cab ride.

Pharmacists in at least 24 states have refused to sell birth control or emergency contraception to women. Some hospital emergency rooms refuse to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.

Denying help to rape victims is O.K., because some Christians “sincerely” don’t believe in contraception. Denying a taxi ride to anyone is a crime, because we really don’t care what Muslims think.

The Republican governor of Kansas has signed a law allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for drugs they believe may induce abortions.

Yes, I know. You may say, “It’s Kansas, where schools teach creationism. So what can you expect?” But this law was passed in 2012, two years before essentially the same kind of law was passed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

When Kansas leads the nation, you know you have problems.

The Roberts and Scalia court is operating under an assumption that Christianity is the United States’ semi-official religion and that it should be legislated and protected in a way that other faiths are not.

This is, of course, a misreading of the Constitution–despite what the deranged members of the Fox News Christian Evangelical Dominionist American public would like to believe.

How would conservatives and their agents respond if a company with Islamic beliefs (however defined) decided to impose its religious values on white, Christian, American employees?

Sharia hysteria would spread in such a way as to make the present day-to-day Islamophobia of the Right-wing echo chamber appear benign and muted by comparison.

Let’s briefly summarize the Supreme Court’s decision.

1. Christians do not have to follow any law if they “sincerely hold” that law violates their personal interpretation of their bible, (recognizing that “sincerely hold” is not defined and impossible to determine.

2. This right is limited to Christians, and not granted to any other religion. (That is why it is a “narrow” decision.)

3. Men know better than women, what is best for women’s health; restrictions only will be placed on women. (For instance, no law will prevent men from getting vasectomies.)

This is the same Supreme Court that ruled unlimited spending, which imposes on a captive nation, the political beliefs and actions of the wealthy and powerful, apparently is “freedom of speech.”

See the pattern? Whenever right-wing, male Christians wish to enhance their power over a captive multitude, they merely call it “freedom” (while marching and carrying the requisite American flag).

So if you’re not allowed to buy contraceptives, or to be insured for a legal abortion, or to study evolution, it’s because your rights are inferior to a right-wing, male Christian’s freedom.

The Supreme Court says so.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY